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The Walloon Agricultural Research Centre (CRA-W) is a public regional institution developing research programs in agriculture, horticulture and forestry. One of itsmissions is to safeguard, evaluate and promote the use of the large diversity of its regional fruit tree genetic resources. The collection program started in 1975, andsince then the main objective has been to evaluate this large fruit tree collection for its disease tolerance to point out the best performing old varieties and making use ofit by releasing the more robust and disease tolerant fruit tree cultivars through a network of SME nurseries. The CRA-W’s role is to contribute to the transfer ofknowledge and experience on regional diversity of fruit genetic resources, to build long-term conservation actions with the public, to improve public awareness on thistopic by enabling the discovery of its richness, and finally, to promote local economic activities based on non-sprayed agroecosystems and various quality fruit products(fresh and processed).One of the primary goals of the Diversifruits association is to unite citizens and stakeholders around the challenges of safeguarding and promoting the uses of ourlarge diversity of fruit tree heritage (pome fruit, stone fruit, small fruits and berries) and to promote the plantation of small or larger unsprayed orchards (garden trees,espaliers, orchard meadows, agroforestry, …). Another task of the association is to collaborate with CRA-W and the ‘Walloon Federation of Natural Parks’ in thecoordination and animation of a multi-site network of regional repository orchards.This task is performed thanks to the financial support of the Walloon Region. The association is also devoted to promoting economic activities related to fruit heritagefrom old and new orchard meadows in Belgium. In this way, one of Diversifruits’ and CRA-W’s partner projects – ‘Wal4Fruits’ - supports the development of the economicsector on the downstream side of local enterprises by stimulating the marketing of fruit in accordance with the regional Differentiated Quality standard. Wal4fruits alsopromotes the diversification of orchard production via the implementation of new types of multi-fruit hedges.